http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
(Melchizedek Communique, MC042211) Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?
Potential jurors are being questioned for the second trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, also known as "Blago." With unlimited funds, federal hounds have barked ceaselessly on the trail of the increasingly impoverished Blagojevich. No longer can Blago afford the legal fire-power he had at his first trial. The federal hounds and their allies in the news media sniff blood and are salivating in anticipation.
In the early morning of Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, Blago had been arrested. It had been only the day before that Blago had defied the Bank of America and championed the cause of workers at Republic Windows. The then-Governor had ordered that Illinois government cease doing business with Bank of America. It is unclear why the feds chose to stage a dramatic pre-dawn raid and arrest of the Illinois Governor: Why not just wait until Blago was at work? Why did the feds instead upset the two young daughters of Rod Blagojevich when they burst into his home with needless theatrics?
Among the names which won increased publicity in connection with the Blago case is John Harris, the Governor's chief of staff. Pressure was put on Harris to testify against Blago. A Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of Harris -- Cooperate, or else! Did that same sort of pressure have anything to do with the tragic death of Chris Kelly, adviser and fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich? "Christopher Kelly died after taking an overdose of pain medications, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office." [1]
Another name, that of State Senator Jimmy DeLeo, a personal friend of Blago, is a "power-behind-the-power" in Illinois, according to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. [2]
What does Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. know? He had met with Blago the day before the Governor's dramatic pre-dawn arrest. [3]
Chicago, notices Blago in his book, The Governor, is strangely organized as if it is a Catholic Archdiocese. The Mayor's office and City Hall are like the Cardinal's residence in this perception. But now, with Rahm Emanuel shoehorned in as the next Mayor of Chicago, what does this mean for the Chicago "Archdiocese"? (Nothing is meant here, per se, against Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish. But rather unease about Emanuel's being selected mayor privately in the smoke-filled rooms instead of by the rough-and-tumble of the democratic process is here expressed.)
In the Archdiocesal politics of Chicago, Rod Blagojevich is of Serbian nationality, and is thereby linked to the Greek Orthodox Church. In both World War I and World War II Serbia was a staunch ally of the United States. Siding with the Nazis was Catholic Croatia. And yet, during the 1990s Yugoslavian wars, the Greek Orthodox Serbs were the "bad guys" and the Catholic Croatians were relatively condoned!
Chicago politics and its political organizations "are very much like old feudal organizations from medieval Europe." Among the feudal chieftains is Richard Mell, the father of Patti Blagojevich, wife of Blago. Richard Mell holds great power in Chicago as a "ward boss." [3]
Another Illinois chieftain is Michael Madigan, Illinois State House Speaker. All the other state representatives have tiny operating budgets and must come crawling to Madigan for funds. Sighs Madigan with a twinkle in his eye, "They are always after me lucky charms." And, in fact, Michael Madigan resembles the Lucky Charms leprechaun.
Before he was Governor, Blago ran for Congress. Back then, he was introduced to Tony Rezko. One day Tony Rezko took Blago to a law office and introduced him to a young lawyer named Barack Obama. David Axelrod, later a senior adviser in the Obama White House, helped Blago find a chief of staff when Blago was elected to Congress. "David [Axelrod] was my media consultant in that race for Congress," confides Blago in his book, The Governor. While in Congress, Blago had a close working relationship with Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. When Blago left Congress, Rahm Emanuel came in to fill the vacated congressional seat. Emanuel managed to raise "a boatload of money" for his congressional campaign, notes Blago. One wonders, since Rahm Emanuel is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, whether any of the "boatload" came in via the Mossad.
These and other jellyfish swim just beneath the surface of "Rod Blagojevich Part 2" now beginning. But Blago is about tapped out of lawyer money, unlike the feds who can just print all they need. And so the odds do not favor the former Governor at this point. The news media have already long-since placed a crown of thorns on Blago's head. The judge, James B. Zagel, like Pontius Pilate, has washed his hands.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back..." [4]
But "where today the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." [4]
------- Notes -------
[1] "Chris Kelly suicide: Medical examiner says former Blagojevich adviser overdosed on pain medications",Chicago Tribune archives, Nov. 10, 2009
[2] "Stage is set for heads to roll, cash to roll in", by John Kass. Chicago Tribune, Jan. 15, 2009
[3] The Governor, by Rod Blagojevich. Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2009
[4] "The Present Crisis", by James Russell Lowell
Showing posts with label Tony Rezko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Rezko. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Beast of the Month - September 2008
Beast of the Month - September 2008
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama Foreign Policy Guru
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"
The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Those evil Russians. With their mastermind Vladimir Putin in charge (using "President" Dmitry Medvedev as his front-man puppet) those nasty Soviets invaded the noble, peace-loving nation of Georgia, just so they could steal land from a thriving little democracy that just wanted to be left alone.
At least that's how it’s been portrayed in the press.
Okay, maybe Russia isn't the most sympathetic "victim" in world affairs, and Putin has proven himself to be quite the would-be dictator. But the story as it's been presented just doesn't add up. Let's start with the issue of who attacked who first. In fact, it was Georgia, who bombarded the province of South Ossetia unilaterally. The mainstream media even admits this truth, but then argues that since South Ossetia is part of Georgia sovereign nation, the attack was legitimate. Of course, this ignores that South Ossetia long has had secessionist desires from Georgia so it could reunite with the Russian homeland. Indeed, a 2006 referendum in which voter turnout was 95 percent showed that 99 percent of South Ossetians supported their continued quasi-independence from Georgia, a landslide of near-universal proportions. 34 international observers monitored the election, and none disputed the validity of the results. This shouldn't be a surprise: since 1992, Russian peacekeeper have remained in the province under agreement with Georgia to protect its desired independence from the rest of the nation.
In attacking South Ossetia, Georgia went after the city of Tskhinvali, which has no military targets and is a residential and industrial center home to 30,000 people. The majority of these people, incidentally, have both Russian citizenship and passports. The massive bombing and shelling of these people can rightly be deemed a war crime, and according to Russia, over 2,000 people were murdered in the massacre. Given this provocation, Russia did what any superpower nation would do under similar circumstances: sent its own military to repel the assault and defend its own citizens.
(This, of course, leads to the ultimate absurdity of the situation: Team USA feigns outrage at supposed Russian violation of sovereignty of a hostile nation situated right at its border, while the invasion of the Iraqi nation half-way across the planet continues in its sixth year.)
Even in the Western media, Putin (long made out to be a Bond-like super-villain) and Medvedev (long mocked as Putin's poodle) didn't lose the most PR-wise, since they didn't have far to fall. It was Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, who long had been championed as a supposed leader devoted to democracy. At best, he appeared to be a sniveling opportunist who falsely assumed that Russia wouldn't respond to its attack, or that NATO would defend it if Russia did. At worst, he was revealed as a political charlatan who uses charm and Western propaganda to hide his power-hungry actions, actions which have made him increasingly unpopular in Georgia. (And as far as NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine goes, does anyone really believe that defending a nation on the border of Russia with the NATO pact is a good idea, even ignoring what an arrogant buffoon Saakashvili is in particular?)
Still, focusing on Saakashvili misses the big picture of who is in charge here. After all, if Medvedev is Putin's puppet, so is Mikhail S. to NATO and the West. (In fact, Saakashvili is such a tool, it is safe to assume the Bush Team greenlighted the South Ossetia invasion.) And in particular, Saakashvili is beholden to one man: Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Brzezinski, for those unaware, was founding executive director in 1973 of the Trilateral Commission, the conspiracy bugaboo long alleged to be the major not-so-secret player in international affairs. Created by David Rockefeller, the TLC got together leaders of the US, Western Europe and Japan (hence the "trilateral" part of its name) to coordinate foreign policy plans in secret. Jimmy Carter became a member, and when he was elected President, he named Z-man as his National Security Advisor.
Nearly twenty-eight years after his presidency, Carter is known for being a warm, snuggly Nobel Peace Prize winner, but whatever fuzzy, peace-loving tendencies Jimmy had, Zbig didn't share them. He was the decided hawk in the Democratic establishment, and he is best described as the Democratic Party's answer to Henry Kissinger. Nor is he particularly fond of democracy, as the 1974 TLC report "The Crisis of Democracy" revealed: it argued the masses had too much influence over government and economics, influence that needed to be curtailed.
How to curtail that democratic influence on government? The best way, it seems, is by creating faux-populist leaders who would dazzle the public, then let the same old club of powerful insiders run the show behind the curtain. Jimmy Carter was the first of these in 1976, followed by Ronald Reagan in 1980, Clinton in 1992 and GWB in 2000. All of these candidates feigned that they were outsiders during the campaign, but then mainly served sectors of the establishment after occupying the White House. (Bush Sr. was the solitary admitted insider after he won in '88.) This leads to this year's election, where the Democrat's have Mr. "Hope and Change" Barack Obama battling the Republican's "Maverick" John McCain. Do we see a pattern?
Of course, as far as ties to Brzezinski go, Barack Obama is far deeper than McCain, something heavily detailed by author Webster Tarpley in the recent political expose Obama - The Postmodern Coup. Zbig's support of Obama turned covert after Brzezinski became publicly critical of Israel and its lobby. As Obama would explain in February, "He's not one of my key advisers. I've had lunch with him once. I've exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times. He came to Iowa to introduce me for a speech on Iraq." (If this line of argument sounds familiar, it's the same one he used for his deep ties to financial swindler Tony Rezko and former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.) But until the Israeli controversy, Brzezinski was featured prominently as a chief Obama foreign policy advisor, a de facto position that has likely remained the same.
This may not be for the better. While the GOP has been taken over by the destructively incompetent neocons, at least even George W. Bush was smart enough to know that wars in the Middle East are less dangerous than an overt battle with either Russia or China (which is why he wisely ducked a major confrontation with Russia over the Georgia crisis.)
Don't take The Konformist's word for it. Brzezinski laid it all out in his 1998 book The Grand Chessboard, where he argued the 21st century would turn into a major battle between Russia, China and the West for control of natural resources, in particular oil. Ten years later, his book looks more like a blueprint than a prediction, although the battle between the West and both Russia and China still remains extremely cold. But that could change: both Georgia's Saakashvili and Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko (two former Soviet Republic's with important strategic locations in the battle for access to Caspian Sea oil between the West and Russia) are presidents whose campaigns were backed by the brains of Brzezinski and the funds of George Soros. Both were rushed in on a wave of gushing populist frenzy, followed by increasing unpopularity as they followed policies of neoliberal economics and provoking the Russian bear in foreign policy. That the same recipe behind Saakashvili and Yushchenko is being used for the Obamahead cult shouldn't be too comforting.
But so this doesn't get confused as an advertisement for the McCain campaign, Mr. Maverick has as his foreign policy guru Randy Scheunemann, a frothing neocon who for four years was a paid foreign lobbyist of (drum roll please) the nation of Georgia. It is important to note that after the Georgia-Russia conflict began, McCain immediately was far more forceful in bellicose anti-Russian posturings than Obama. No surprise for the one 2008 candidate more tied to Bush's Iraq War than any other.
All of which suggests that, when it comes to foreign policy, 2008 is a rigged game. Obama, after feigning to be the "antiwar candidate" during the Democratic primary, has shed all such pretensions as November approaches. To his credit, McCain has never pretended otherwise than to be a Commander-in-Chief President. Either way, we're looking at four more years of Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly new misadventures in Iran and, yes, Russia. Meet the new boss...
In any case, we salute Zbigniew Brzezinski as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Z-man!!!
Sources:
Adams, Cecil. "Is the Trilateral Commission the Secret Organization that Runs the World?" The Straight Dope 6 November 1987 <http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/524/is-the-trilateral-commission-the-secret-organization-that-runs-the-world>.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1998.
Judis, John B. "Neo-McCain." New Republic 16 October 2006 <http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=23c3a0ff-9d55-4d28-a94e-0b0e09e26505>.
Scheer, Robert. "Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?" Truthdig 12 August 2008 <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080812_georgia_war_a_neocon_election_ploy/>.
Smith, Ben. "Obama Adviser Worries Israel Supporters." Politico 12 September 2007 <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5783.html>.
Sweet, Lynn. "Obama Assures Jewish Leaders on Religion, Israel Stance." Chicago Sun-Times 25 February 2008 <http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/811251,CST-NWS-sweet25.article>.
Tarpley, Webster Griffin. "Brzezinski's Georgia Puppets Attack Russia - WWIII In Sight." Rense.com 11 August 2008 <http://rense.com/general82/indt.htm>.
Tarpley, Webster Griffin. Obama - The Postmodern Coup. Joshua Tree: Progressive Press, 2008.
Traynor, Ian. "Georgia Crisis: Medvedev Promises to Guarantee Any Vote by Rebel States to Break with Tbilisi." The Guardian 15 August 2008 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/15/russia.georgia>.
Whitney, Mike. "Putin's Winning Hand." Information Clearing House 16 August 2008 <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20535.htm>.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama Foreign Policy Guru
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"
The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Those evil Russians. With their mastermind Vladimir Putin in charge (using "President" Dmitry Medvedev as his front-man puppet) those nasty Soviets invaded the noble, peace-loving nation of Georgia, just so they could steal land from a thriving little democracy that just wanted to be left alone.
At least that's how it’s been portrayed in the press.
Okay, maybe Russia isn't the most sympathetic "victim" in world affairs, and Putin has proven himself to be quite the would-be dictator. But the story as it's been presented just doesn't add up. Let's start with the issue of who attacked who first. In fact, it was Georgia, who bombarded the province of South Ossetia unilaterally. The mainstream media even admits this truth, but then argues that since South Ossetia is part of Georgia sovereign nation, the attack was legitimate. Of course, this ignores that South Ossetia long has had secessionist desires from Georgia so it could reunite with the Russian homeland. Indeed, a 2006 referendum in which voter turnout was 95 percent showed that 99 percent of South Ossetians supported their continued quasi-independence from Georgia, a landslide of near-universal proportions. 34 international observers monitored the election, and none disputed the validity of the results. This shouldn't be a surprise: since 1992, Russian peacekeeper have remained in the province under agreement with Georgia to protect its desired independence from the rest of the nation.
In attacking South Ossetia, Georgia went after the city of Tskhinvali, which has no military targets and is a residential and industrial center home to 30,000 people. The majority of these people, incidentally, have both Russian citizenship and passports. The massive bombing and shelling of these people can rightly be deemed a war crime, and according to Russia, over 2,000 people were murdered in the massacre. Given this provocation, Russia did what any superpower nation would do under similar circumstances: sent its own military to repel the assault and defend its own citizens.
(This, of course, leads to the ultimate absurdity of the situation: Team USA feigns outrage at supposed Russian violation of sovereignty of a hostile nation situated right at its border, while the invasion of the Iraqi nation half-way across the planet continues in its sixth year.)
Even in the Western media, Putin (long made out to be a Bond-like super-villain) and Medvedev (long mocked as Putin's poodle) didn't lose the most PR-wise, since they didn't have far to fall. It was Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, who long had been championed as a supposed leader devoted to democracy. At best, he appeared to be a sniveling opportunist who falsely assumed that Russia wouldn't respond to its attack, or that NATO would defend it if Russia did. At worst, he was revealed as a political charlatan who uses charm and Western propaganda to hide his power-hungry actions, actions which have made him increasingly unpopular in Georgia. (And as far as NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine goes, does anyone really believe that defending a nation on the border of Russia with the NATO pact is a good idea, even ignoring what an arrogant buffoon Saakashvili is in particular?)
Still, focusing on Saakashvili misses the big picture of who is in charge here. After all, if Medvedev is Putin's puppet, so is Mikhail S. to NATO and the West. (In fact, Saakashvili is such a tool, it is safe to assume the Bush Team greenlighted the South Ossetia invasion.) And in particular, Saakashvili is beholden to one man: Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Brzezinski, for those unaware, was founding executive director in 1973 of the Trilateral Commission, the conspiracy bugaboo long alleged to be the major not-so-secret player in international affairs. Created by David Rockefeller, the TLC got together leaders of the US, Western Europe and Japan (hence the "trilateral" part of its name) to coordinate foreign policy plans in secret. Jimmy Carter became a member, and when he was elected President, he named Z-man as his National Security Advisor.
Nearly twenty-eight years after his presidency, Carter is known for being a warm, snuggly Nobel Peace Prize winner, but whatever fuzzy, peace-loving tendencies Jimmy had, Zbig didn't share them. He was the decided hawk in the Democratic establishment, and he is best described as the Democratic Party's answer to Henry Kissinger. Nor is he particularly fond of democracy, as the 1974 TLC report "The Crisis of Democracy" revealed: it argued the masses had too much influence over government and economics, influence that needed to be curtailed.
How to curtail that democratic influence on government? The best way, it seems, is by creating faux-populist leaders who would dazzle the public, then let the same old club of powerful insiders run the show behind the curtain. Jimmy Carter was the first of these in 1976, followed by Ronald Reagan in 1980, Clinton in 1992 and GWB in 2000. All of these candidates feigned that they were outsiders during the campaign, but then mainly served sectors of the establishment after occupying the White House. (Bush Sr. was the solitary admitted insider after he won in '88.) This leads to this year's election, where the Democrat's have Mr. "Hope and Change" Barack Obama battling the Republican's "Maverick" John McCain. Do we see a pattern?
Of course, as far as ties to Brzezinski go, Barack Obama is far deeper than McCain, something heavily detailed by author Webster Tarpley in the recent political expose Obama - The Postmodern Coup. Zbig's support of Obama turned covert after Brzezinski became publicly critical of Israel and its lobby. As Obama would explain in February, "He's not one of my key advisers. I've had lunch with him once. I've exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times. He came to Iowa to introduce me for a speech on Iraq." (If this line of argument sounds familiar, it's the same one he used for his deep ties to financial swindler Tony Rezko and former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.) But until the Israeli controversy, Brzezinski was featured prominently as a chief Obama foreign policy advisor, a de facto position that has likely remained the same.
This may not be for the better. While the GOP has been taken over by the destructively incompetent neocons, at least even George W. Bush was smart enough to know that wars in the Middle East are less dangerous than an overt battle with either Russia or China (which is why he wisely ducked a major confrontation with Russia over the Georgia crisis.)
Don't take The Konformist's word for it. Brzezinski laid it all out in his 1998 book The Grand Chessboard, where he argued the 21st century would turn into a major battle between Russia, China and the West for control of natural resources, in particular oil. Ten years later, his book looks more like a blueprint than a prediction, although the battle between the West and both Russia and China still remains extremely cold. But that could change: both Georgia's Saakashvili and Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko (two former Soviet Republic's with important strategic locations in the battle for access to Caspian Sea oil between the West and Russia) are presidents whose campaigns were backed by the brains of Brzezinski and the funds of George Soros. Both were rushed in on a wave of gushing populist frenzy, followed by increasing unpopularity as they followed policies of neoliberal economics and provoking the Russian bear in foreign policy. That the same recipe behind Saakashvili and Yushchenko is being used for the Obamahead cult shouldn't be too comforting.
But so this doesn't get confused as an advertisement for the McCain campaign, Mr. Maverick has as his foreign policy guru Randy Scheunemann, a frothing neocon who for four years was a paid foreign lobbyist of (drum roll please) the nation of Georgia. It is important to note that after the Georgia-Russia conflict began, McCain immediately was far more forceful in bellicose anti-Russian posturings than Obama. No surprise for the one 2008 candidate more tied to Bush's Iraq War than any other.
All of which suggests that, when it comes to foreign policy, 2008 is a rigged game. Obama, after feigning to be the "antiwar candidate" during the Democratic primary, has shed all such pretensions as November approaches. To his credit, McCain has never pretended otherwise than to be a Commander-in-Chief President. Either way, we're looking at four more years of Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly new misadventures in Iran and, yes, Russia. Meet the new boss...
In any case, we salute Zbigniew Brzezinski as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Z-man!!!
Sources:
Adams, Cecil. "Is the Trilateral Commission the Secret Organization that Runs the World?" The Straight Dope 6 November 1987 <http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/524/is-the-trilateral-commission-the-secret-organization-that-runs-the-world>.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1998.
Judis, John B. "Neo-McCain." New Republic 16 October 2006 <http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=23c3a0ff-9d55-4d28-a94e-0b0e09e26505>.
Scheer, Robert. "Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?" Truthdig 12 August 2008 <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080812_georgia_war_a_neocon_election_ploy/>.
Smith, Ben. "Obama Adviser Worries Israel Supporters." Politico 12 September 2007 <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5783.html>.
Sweet, Lynn. "Obama Assures Jewish Leaders on Religion, Israel Stance." Chicago Sun-Times 25 February 2008 <http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/811251,CST-NWS-sweet25.article>.
Tarpley, Webster Griffin. "Brzezinski's Georgia Puppets Attack Russia - WWIII In Sight." Rense.com 11 August 2008 <http://rense.com/general82/indt.htm>.
Tarpley, Webster Griffin. Obama - The Postmodern Coup. Joshua Tree: Progressive Press, 2008.
Traynor, Ian. "Georgia Crisis: Medvedev Promises to Guarantee Any Vote by Rebel States to Break with Tbilisi." The Guardian 15 August 2008 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/15/russia.georgia>.
Whitney, Mike. "Putin's Winning Hand." Information Clearing House 16 August 2008 <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20535.htm>.
Senate scandal snares Obama’s chief aide
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5337807.ece
The Sunday Times
December 14, 2008
Senate scandal snares Obama’s chief aide
Sarah Baxter, Washington
THE bullish, foul-mouthed but effective Chicago arm-twister Rahm Emanuel has come under pressure to resign as Barack Obama’s chief of staff after it was revealed that he had been captured on court-approved wire-taps discussing the names of candidates for Obama’s Senate seat.
Emanuel’s presence at the heart of the scandal threatens to roil the president-elect’s administration as a Chicago prosecutor builds his corruption case against Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor.
Blagojevich has been accused of plotting to sell Obama’s Senate seat - which is in the governor’s gift - in return for financial and political favours.
Republicans are salivating at the prospect of tying the president-elect to the notoriously corrupt Chicago machine in which he forged his career. Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “If Obama wants to be squeaky clean, he is going to have to cut all his Chicago friends loose. His chief of staff has fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
Emanuel ducked out of view last week, avoiding reporters’ questions and complaining of harassment and “death threats” as the news spread that he was the likely unnamed adviser cited by the FBI with whom the tainted Blagojevich hoped to bargain over the appointment.
For the “No Drama” Obama team, the spiralling controversy has been an alarming distraction in the midst of the US economic meltdown. Obama has yet to release a promised timeline of contacts between members of his transition team and the governor's office, while Emanuel is thought to be consulting lawyers.
Ed Rendell, the outspoken governor of Pennsylvania, said the Obama team was bungling its response. “The rule of thumb is: whatever you did, say it and get it over with and make it a one-day story as opposed to a three-day story,” he said.
Private telephone discussions between Emanuel and John Harris, Blagojevich’s chief of staff, began as early as the weekend before the November 4 election, the Chicago Tribune revealed yesterday. Emanuel let it be known that Valerie Jarrett, an Obama adviser, Tammy Duckworth, a wounded Iraq war veteran, and two other candidates would be “acceptable” to Obama.
Emanuel had further talks with the governor’s office after the election, during which he added another name to the list. It does not appear that Emanuel engaged in any illegal horse-trading - Blagojevich complained at one stage that all the president-elect’s team was offering was “appreciation”. “F*** them,” the governor said.
Jarrett, Obama’s first choice as senator, was swiftly named a senior White House adviser to Obama after Blagojevich complained, according to FBI transcripts, that he was not going to “give f******” Jarrett the f****** Senate seat and I don’t get anything”.
However, questions remain over what Emanuel said when and how much he know about the governor’s “pay to play” scheme. He may have been fully aware of what Blagojevich was attempting. At one stage the governor told an aide that he wanted an unnamed “president-elect adviser”, thought to be Emanuel, to help “raise 10, 15m” for a charitable group, which the governor could head.
Did Emanuel receive the news, and if so, how? Did he report his suspicion of illegal activity to the FBI or did he treat it just as a normal part of wheeler-dealing in the corrupt Windy City? And did he use the same four-letter language to discuss the succession in the same crude terms as Blagojevich?
Obama once joked at a charity “roast” that the notoriously crude Emanuel - who was elected to Congress in Blagojevich’s old seat - was rendered “practically mute” when he lost his middle finger in an accident.
“When you are Rahm Emanuel and you use the f-word all the time, it is supposed to be cute and amusing,” Norquist said. “When the governor of Illinois gets caught, people say, ‘Oh, he’s crazy’, and the proof that he is crazy is that he talks like Rahm Emanuel.”
Obama faces a stark choice. Emanuel was his first apppointment as his chief of staff after the election. If he were to throw him out of the inner circle now with his reputation under siege, it would be a singular act of disloyalty before the transition team has even had a chance to take office.
Emanuel has not yet resigned as a member of the House of Representatives for Illinois, although he has pledged to do so. Obama had to work hard to persuade Emanuel, who had his own independent power base in Congress and a semblance of normal family life with his young children, to join him in the most intensive, high-pressure job in the White House.
However, the scandal is lapping at Obama’s own ankles. Blagojevich is a product of the entrenched graft and corruption that have characterised Chicago’s style of government since the days of Al Capone, the prohibition-era gangster.
He is being investigated by Patrick Fitzgerald, 47, a fearless prosecutor who brought down Scooter Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s neoconservative adviser, and Conrad Black, the media baron.
Fitzgerald is a much-resented figure among Obama’s advisers. David Axelrod, the Chicago mastermind behind Obama’s campaign, once complained: “He goes after fleas and elephants with the same bazooka. At some point there is a line . . . where you begin criminalising politics in its most innocent form.”
Obama is himself embroiled in a sub-plot of the scandal with uncomfortable connections to Blagojevich, even though the president-elect said last week that he was “appalled” by the governor’s actions.
As Fitzgerald widens his inquiry across Chicago, witnesses will be lining up to talk – if only to save their own necks. Harris, who has been accused with his boss of planning to sell the Senate seat, resigned last Friday, prompting speculation that he intends to cooperate with federal investigators.
Ominously for Obama, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the property dealer and fixer who helped him to buy his $1.65m house in Chicago by purchasing an adjacent plot on the same day, has also been talking to investigators in an attempt to reduce a prison sentence following his conviction for fraud and bribery. Rezko is expected to be a key witness in the corruption case against Blagojevich but he also knows more than anybody about the house purchase and other deals with Obama.
When the house came on the market, the seller insisted that both plots were sold at the same time. But while Obama bought his part of the property for $300,000 under the asking price, it has emerged that Rezko’s wife not only paid the asking price for their slice of land – $625,000 – but that the extra piece of property may have been deliberately overvalued.
A valuer who made an initial lower estimate, only to be overruled, is believed to be giving evidence to Fitzgerald’s team.
Rezko also appears to have helped Blagojevich with his domestic affairs. Investigators have been trying to find out whether he charged the governor for $90,000 worth of improvements to the family room and deck of his house.
The governor’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, a Lady Macbeth figure who may face charges herself for encouraging her husband to behave corruptly, received $47,000 in commission from a property deal involving Rezko.
In a further disturbing connection, Rezko regularly supplied Blagojevich with a “clout list” of names of people he thought the governor should appoint to state boards and jobs.
Obama made use of Rezko’s clout list on at least one occasion, when he recommended that Eric Whitaker, an old Harvard friend and doctor, be hired as director of Illinois’s public health department.
Whitaker, Obama said, “had expressed an interest in that job. He did contact me, or Tony contacted me, and I gave him a glowing recommendation because I thought he was outstanding”.
Fitzgerald made it clear that Obama is not a target of investigation. Emanuel is thought to be free from any threat of charges. But that will not be the end of the matter.
The Sunday Times
December 14, 2008
Senate scandal snares Obama’s chief aide
Sarah Baxter, Washington
THE bullish, foul-mouthed but effective Chicago arm-twister Rahm Emanuel has come under pressure to resign as Barack Obama’s chief of staff after it was revealed that he had been captured on court-approved wire-taps discussing the names of candidates for Obama’s Senate seat.
Emanuel’s presence at the heart of the scandal threatens to roil the president-elect’s administration as a Chicago prosecutor builds his corruption case against Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor.
Blagojevich has been accused of plotting to sell Obama’s Senate seat - which is in the governor’s gift - in return for financial and political favours.
Republicans are salivating at the prospect of tying the president-elect to the notoriously corrupt Chicago machine in which he forged his career. Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “If Obama wants to be squeaky clean, he is going to have to cut all his Chicago friends loose. His chief of staff has fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
Emanuel ducked out of view last week, avoiding reporters’ questions and complaining of harassment and “death threats” as the news spread that he was the likely unnamed adviser cited by the FBI with whom the tainted Blagojevich hoped to bargain over the appointment.
For the “No Drama” Obama team, the spiralling controversy has been an alarming distraction in the midst of the US economic meltdown. Obama has yet to release a promised timeline of contacts between members of his transition team and the governor's office, while Emanuel is thought to be consulting lawyers.
Ed Rendell, the outspoken governor of Pennsylvania, said the Obama team was bungling its response. “The rule of thumb is: whatever you did, say it and get it over with and make it a one-day story as opposed to a three-day story,” he said.
Private telephone discussions between Emanuel and John Harris, Blagojevich’s chief of staff, began as early as the weekend before the November 4 election, the Chicago Tribune revealed yesterday. Emanuel let it be known that Valerie Jarrett, an Obama adviser, Tammy Duckworth, a wounded Iraq war veteran, and two other candidates would be “acceptable” to Obama.
Emanuel had further talks with the governor’s office after the election, during which he added another name to the list. It does not appear that Emanuel engaged in any illegal horse-trading - Blagojevich complained at one stage that all the president-elect’s team was offering was “appreciation”. “F*** them,” the governor said.
Jarrett, Obama’s first choice as senator, was swiftly named a senior White House adviser to Obama after Blagojevich complained, according to FBI transcripts, that he was not going to “give f******” Jarrett the f****** Senate seat and I don’t get anything”.
However, questions remain over what Emanuel said when and how much he know about the governor’s “pay to play” scheme. He may have been fully aware of what Blagojevich was attempting. At one stage the governor told an aide that he wanted an unnamed “president-elect adviser”, thought to be Emanuel, to help “raise 10, 15m” for a charitable group, which the governor could head.
Did Emanuel receive the news, and if so, how? Did he report his suspicion of illegal activity to the FBI or did he treat it just as a normal part of wheeler-dealing in the corrupt Windy City? And did he use the same four-letter language to discuss the succession in the same crude terms as Blagojevich?
Obama once joked at a charity “roast” that the notoriously crude Emanuel - who was elected to Congress in Blagojevich’s old seat - was rendered “practically mute” when he lost his middle finger in an accident.
“When you are Rahm Emanuel and you use the f-word all the time, it is supposed to be cute and amusing,” Norquist said. “When the governor of Illinois gets caught, people say, ‘Oh, he’s crazy’, and the proof that he is crazy is that he talks like Rahm Emanuel.”
Obama faces a stark choice. Emanuel was his first apppointment as his chief of staff after the election. If he were to throw him out of the inner circle now with his reputation under siege, it would be a singular act of disloyalty before the transition team has even had a chance to take office.
Emanuel has not yet resigned as a member of the House of Representatives for Illinois, although he has pledged to do so. Obama had to work hard to persuade Emanuel, who had his own independent power base in Congress and a semblance of normal family life with his young children, to join him in the most intensive, high-pressure job in the White House.
However, the scandal is lapping at Obama’s own ankles. Blagojevich is a product of the entrenched graft and corruption that have characterised Chicago’s style of government since the days of Al Capone, the prohibition-era gangster.
He is being investigated by Patrick Fitzgerald, 47, a fearless prosecutor who brought down Scooter Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s neoconservative adviser, and Conrad Black, the media baron.
Fitzgerald is a much-resented figure among Obama’s advisers. David Axelrod, the Chicago mastermind behind Obama’s campaign, once complained: “He goes after fleas and elephants with the same bazooka. At some point there is a line . . . where you begin criminalising politics in its most innocent form.”
Obama is himself embroiled in a sub-plot of the scandal with uncomfortable connections to Blagojevich, even though the president-elect said last week that he was “appalled” by the governor’s actions.
As Fitzgerald widens his inquiry across Chicago, witnesses will be lining up to talk – if only to save their own necks. Harris, who has been accused with his boss of planning to sell the Senate seat, resigned last Friday, prompting speculation that he intends to cooperate with federal investigators.
Ominously for Obama, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the property dealer and fixer who helped him to buy his $1.65m house in Chicago by purchasing an adjacent plot on the same day, has also been talking to investigators in an attempt to reduce a prison sentence following his conviction for fraud and bribery. Rezko is expected to be a key witness in the corruption case against Blagojevich but he also knows more than anybody about the house purchase and other deals with Obama.
When the house came on the market, the seller insisted that both plots were sold at the same time. But while Obama bought his part of the property for $300,000 under the asking price, it has emerged that Rezko’s wife not only paid the asking price for their slice of land – $625,000 – but that the extra piece of property may have been deliberately overvalued.
A valuer who made an initial lower estimate, only to be overruled, is believed to be giving evidence to Fitzgerald’s team.
Rezko also appears to have helped Blagojevich with his domestic affairs. Investigators have been trying to find out whether he charged the governor for $90,000 worth of improvements to the family room and deck of his house.
The governor’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, a Lady Macbeth figure who may face charges herself for encouraging her husband to behave corruptly, received $47,000 in commission from a property deal involving Rezko.
In a further disturbing connection, Rezko regularly supplied Blagojevich with a “clout list” of names of people he thought the governor should appoint to state boards and jobs.
Obama made use of Rezko’s clout list on at least one occasion, when he recommended that Eric Whitaker, an old Harvard friend and doctor, be hired as director of Illinois’s public health department.
Whitaker, Obama said, “had expressed an interest in that job. He did contact me, or Tony contacted me, and I gave him a glowing recommendation because I thought he was outstanding”.
Fitzgerald made it clear that Obama is not a target of investigation. Emanuel is thought to be free from any threat of charges. But that will not be the end of the matter.
Change you can believe in...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5315460.ece
December 10, 2008
Change you can believe in - from a city long steeped in corruption
James Bone: analysis
Barack Obama won a convincing victory in the US presidential election as the man who could deliver “change you can believe in”.
The President-elect emerged, however, from a city where political corruption has been rife since before the time of the gangster Al Capone. As Robert Grant, the FBI agent who arrested Mr Blagojevich, said yesterday: “If [Illinois] is not the most corrupt state in the United States, it is certainly one hell of a competitor.”
Mr Blagojevich is the fifth Illinois governor to be indicted for white-collar crime since 1960. Three of his predecessors were convicted.
What makes the prosecution of Mr Blagojevich potentially nettlesome to Mr Obama is the President-elect's lengthy relationship with the Syrian-born fixer Tony Rezko. During the election campaign, the US press largely turned a blind eye to Mr Obama's ties to Rezko, who was convicted in June of running a scheme where companies seeking state business had to pay kickbacks to him or Illinois politicians. The “pay-to-play” schemes form the basis of some of the allegations against Mr Blagojevich.
Mr Obama has admitted that Rezko was a friend - but was also one of his earliest campaign contributors when he began his political career in state politics in the mid-1990s.
An associate of Rezko told The Times that Mr Obama telephoned Rezko frequently during this period to discuss state politics. Mr Obama had already graduated to national politics, by winning a US Senate seat, when he enlisted Rezko's help in buying his current house in 2005 at a $300,000 (£200,000) discount.
Mr Obama has never been implicated in Rezko's corruption, even though it emerged that Rezko had channelled two $10,000 contributions to Mr Obama's Senate campaign from funds allegedly derived from kickbacks. The President-elect has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the resurgence of interest in Rezko's case with the arrest of Mr Blagojevich cannot have been welcome news, if only because it highlights how Mr Obama, too, dealt closely with a corrupt character on his way up the greasy pole of Illinois politics.
December 10, 2008
Change you can believe in - from a city long steeped in corruption
James Bone: analysis
Barack Obama won a convincing victory in the US presidential election as the man who could deliver “change you can believe in”.
The President-elect emerged, however, from a city where political corruption has been rife since before the time of the gangster Al Capone. As Robert Grant, the FBI agent who arrested Mr Blagojevich, said yesterday: “If [Illinois] is not the most corrupt state in the United States, it is certainly one hell of a competitor.”
Mr Blagojevich is the fifth Illinois governor to be indicted for white-collar crime since 1960. Three of his predecessors were convicted.
What makes the prosecution of Mr Blagojevich potentially nettlesome to Mr Obama is the President-elect's lengthy relationship with the Syrian-born fixer Tony Rezko. During the election campaign, the US press largely turned a blind eye to Mr Obama's ties to Rezko, who was convicted in June of running a scheme where companies seeking state business had to pay kickbacks to him or Illinois politicians. The “pay-to-play” schemes form the basis of some of the allegations against Mr Blagojevich.
Mr Obama has admitted that Rezko was a friend - but was also one of his earliest campaign contributors when he began his political career in state politics in the mid-1990s.
An associate of Rezko told The Times that Mr Obama telephoned Rezko frequently during this period to discuss state politics. Mr Obama had already graduated to national politics, by winning a US Senate seat, when he enlisted Rezko's help in buying his current house in 2005 at a $300,000 (£200,000) discount.
Mr Obama has never been implicated in Rezko's corruption, even though it emerged that Rezko had channelled two $10,000 contributions to Mr Obama's Senate campaign from funds allegedly derived from kickbacks. The President-elect has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the resurgence of interest in Rezko's case with the arrest of Mr Blagojevich cannot have been welcome news, if only because it highlights how Mr Obama, too, dealt closely with a corrupt character on his way up the greasy pole of Illinois politics.
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